


La Sorbonne.

by spacestationtrustfund



Series: Mai 68 AU [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, dubious claims made about 1960s France that I based off 2018 France, many historical references and a fuckton of research, soyons cruels!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-22 11:43:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14307936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacestationtrustfund/pseuds/spacestationtrustfund
Summary: History has already written this story.-The third part of the long-awaited Mai 68 fic. (Long-awaited by the author; begrudgingly accepted by the populace.)





	La Sorbonne.

**Author's Note:**

> Caveat: There are descriptions of police violence in this particular episode of the story, as is historically appropriate. There are period-typical references to drugs, alcohol, politics, and other similar topics. I have tried to stay as true to the source material (i.e., Mai 68 itself) as possible.

TROISIEME PARTIE: LA SORBONNE.

Lundi, Mai 6, 1968

 

It rains, in the morning and in the beginning of the afternoon, little more than a quiet storm that leaves the pavement darkened and the dust turned to mud, and there are huddled droves of lycée students gathered at the Arc du Triomphe with soggy paper signs and determined chants.

L’Institute de Sociologie de l’Université de Caen is occupied by students.

The demonstrators who were imprisoned are still being held, despite the protestations from the workers and universities and, now, _lycéens_. The list is plain, neat: a careful chronicle of demands.

The release of the demonstrators who have been imprisoned.

The dropping of all criminal charges.

The departure of all police personnel from the universities.

The reopening of Nanterre and Sorbonne under new rule.

Factories have been bleeding workers nearly constantly since the incidents at the Saviem earlier in the year, but now they spill out like a burst sack of grain. Strikes are wracking the country; the government says on the television, _there is unrest in France_ , and nothing more. Even the dignity of a proper panic is denied them.

“Add that to the list of conditions,” says Prouvaire, opening the pack of cigarettes. “The right to be suitably feared. The right to be respected as though we might, somehow, actually be a _little_ bit of a problem for capitalism to sweep under the rug.”

Matelote pauses by their table in her quest to recover every abandoned dish or glass from the emptying café. Her hair is loose, and her face is flushed. “You think this could really change things, then?”

Prouvaire looks up and smiles at her. “Think? Mademoiselle, I know it already has. Ten years ago, something like this couldn’t have happened.”

“Ten years ago, Prouvaire, France was still reeling from being relentlessly bombed during the war,” says Grantaire. He and Bahorel have been arm-wrestling in the corner and thoroughly ignoring the political speeches on the television, but he looks up now. “Another set of unrest would have torn her apart entirely.”

Matelote frowns, one hand on her hip. “So you don’t agree with him?”

“Ten years ago, hah. Bobby-soxers! Go back twenty; take 1947. The CRS had their first real taste of blood in the streets. I think it would be wonderful if the people gave a damn about anything beyond getting enough money in their pockets to fill their stomachs and the stomachs of their crying children, but they don’t, de facto. They can barely survive; why hope for something more? The government doesn’t budge. If I were in de Gaulle’s place, I would make it so that no one had to go hungry, but they wouldn’t let me in. The government denies basic rights, and claims that they provide enough. They claim that it’s enough just to _live_. Live! Living is shit. You don’t get anything out of it. Everyone famous is dead. Marx is dead, God as well, and me, for one, I don’t feel that well either.”

Matelote merely rolls her eyes and moves away from them to collect dishes from another table.

Prouvaire lights his cigarette on the ashes of Grantaire’s previous one. “Nanterre decided to make a difference, and they did.”

“Nanterre was full of a bunch of bastards who wanted to get their hands up some skirts,” Grantaire counters; Bahorel doesn’t try to defend his university, just snorts with laughter. “‘Free circulation!’ I’m sure you’ve heard it. Politics was, and continues to be, a farce. They just wanted to be able to go into the girls’ dormitories and screw each other. A better fate than delivering and taking punches in the middle of a burning street with a cop’s baton at your neck.”

“Not all of them are like that,” says Prouvaire, stubborn. “Enjolras isn’t.”

Grantaire makes a little noise of derision. “ _Enjolras_. He’s inhuman. Until you catch him with blood and bruises marring that statuesque face of his. And what do you know about it, anyway? Beaux-Arts only joined once they knew that staying impartial would turn out to work against their own interests in the end. Where was Beaux-Arts when the students were at the forefront of the fray? To that matter, where was Sorbonne? I don’t know, I can’t say; I wasn’t there. I would do better in America, with their drugged-out free love form of rebellion. Or I know I, for one, would prefer to stay at home in my bed.”

“So we should let Nanterre spend itself out?”

“I think we should let Nanterre _enjoy_ itself. It certainly seems to be carried along on the wave of doing what the students believe is the right thing. I’d rather drink myself to sleep with a proper cocktail than stay awake running through the streets with a Molotov.”

“Alcohol kills,” says Prouvaire, lighting another cigarette. “Take LSD.”

 

 

-

 

 

It’s still raining when Enjolras, Courfeyrac, and Marius join them in the café. Marius has a drab greyish umbrella that’s more depressing than the weather outside; Courfeyrac takes off his soaked coat and throws it over Enjolras’s head with a joyous shout, clinging on until Enjolras manages to shove him away, leaving his hair a wild, fuzzy halo.

“Courfeyrac,” says Enjolras irritably, the word chastising as he tries to smooth his hair somewhat, but there’s a grin threatening to appear on his face as well.

They borrow rags and dishcloths from Matelote and Gibelotte and dry themselves off somewhat.

The café in the rain: the windows are streaked with perspiration. The volume on the radio in the corner is turned up high to counter the drumming noise of raindrops on the rust-red awning. The interior lights are on, fluorescent and bright.

“How’s the siege going?” asks Courfeyrac, propping his elbows on the occupied table and leaning in close. “Have the kids broken the barrier of _flics_ yet?”

“I mean, it’s a bunch of lycée students,” says Bahorel, who’s been drumming his fingers on any surface he can reach and whistling the _Internationale_ splendidly off-key ever since the other Nanterre students joined them. “They can’t be more than fifteen, at the oldest. Who expected help like _that_?”

“I think that’s kind of the point,” says Marius quietly. “It sets back the government significantly—they weren’t anticipating the lycéens to join the movement, none of us really were.”

“Hey,” says Prouvaire suddenly, reaching out with the hand not still holding the smouldering cigarette. “Hey, Pontmercy. What happened to your face?”

Marius turns bright red at the reminder, which only serves to highlight the bruises surrounding the left half of his face. “One of the _droitiste_ student groups—”

“The Occident, I’d bet,” says Prouvaire, disgusted. “Fuck.”

Marius ducks his head.

Combeferre joins them a few minutes later, and Marius slouches low in his chair until only the top half of his face is visible. Courfeyrac pats him absently on the wrist as he addresses Combeferre. “How are the negotiations at the Arc going?”

“The police have promised,” says Combeferre, then stops. His face is flushed, and his eyes are shining. “They say they’ll give in. They said—they promised to release everyone, to drop all charges, to reopen the universities. Everything we asked.”

A moment of silence, of disbelief: the news washes over them like a breaking wave.

A victory, at last.

Courfeyrac punches the air and cheers, grinning wildly. Bahorel pounds his fist against the table and whoops. Prouvaire laughs out of sheer joy, and even Marius lets a small smile creep onto his face.

“Friends,” says Enjolras, the word a quiet hum. He’s standing, now, looking at them.

Or—not at them, but right above. Something no one else can see.

Then his gaze shifts, and lands on the people sitting in front of him.

He speaks.

“History has already written this story, a thousand times over. We are living in an endless cycle of rebellion and revolution and we are not going to let this be just another story for the police to laugh at over drinks. History has written how the people will not stand to be oppressed, how the people will rise and fight back; history has written that the barricades and riots are a natural side effect of this. When we as a people are pushed down by violence, suppressed, oppressed, silenced, it is our _right_ , our _duty_ to get back on our feet and say, we will _not_ let this go unpunished.”

He pauses, almost subdued, almost glowing, eyes alight, then adds—

“And they won’t get rid of us. They won’t move us. They won’t stop us. This is more than a few kids complaining, _it’s not fair_. This has ceased to be just a protest against a petty injustice. They’re going to try to get rid of us now that this is over, and we can’t let that happen. We _won’t_ let that happen. Lock us in jail, beat us until we’re bloody, shoot us, kill us—we will remain. They talk about the barricades? For every barricade that falls, a hundred more will be raised the next day.”

The air is charged, but for once it isn’t out of fear.

They’ve _won_. It’s a small victory, perhaps still little more than a pyrrhic one, but it is worth something.

 

 

-

 

 

And then—

 

 

-

 

 

Something has to give.

History has already written this story.

The students march together to the Sorbonne. Something is wrong from the first moment the university comes into view: the police had promised to leave the universities if the students halted their demonstrations. Instead, there at the forefront of the Sorbonne, are the black-clothed officers, batons in hands, helmets obscuring their faces.

Helmets in the style of the Second World War. Twenty years is not such a long time, when you think about it.

The helmets reflect only sky, grim and dismal above. The rain has stopped, but the clouds are still hanging heavily over the city.

“What’s going on?” someone asks, demands, and then everyone picks up the question, spreading it, passing it from hand to hand.

Roche is lurking by the grand steps.

Police form a long line, a solid circle. They move like machines would move, precise and calculated. Inhuman.

“Students,” Roche announces, spreading his hands, creeping out to meet them. He looks rat-like, from this distance; perhaps it’s just the way his suit doesn’t quite fit him properly. “The police will be remaining at the university to ensure the continued safety of the students and faculty on campus. They are a necessary addition to daily life, until we can assure the concerned parents that their children will be safe and sound.”

“The _flics_ don’t want to keep us safe,” one of the students shouts. An anonymous voice, faceless.

A single student; all of them at once.

Roche wets his lips nervously. “Increased security measures will remain in place until the wellbeing of the students can be solidified,” he says, his voice slightly shrill. He shifts; his eyes move rapidly.

It’s a proposed exchange: if the students shut up and go back to normal, the police will melt away.

 _Retour à la normale_.

They would have the students become sheep.

“ _No_ ,” Bossuet shouts, sudden, loud in the echoing silent aftermath. He grabs Joly’s hand, squeezes it tightly. “We’re not stupid. If we give in now, we’ll never gain ground. You’ll never let things change.”

And Enjolras steps forwards.

“The future will only contain what we put into it now,” he calls out, cupping his hands to his mouth to amplify the sound. “If we put nothing into it, then nothing will be gained. We want to create a _better_ future, not one torn apart by war and by internal struggle and political divide. This is meant to be a place for education, not warfare. _Remove the police from the universities_.”

Roche takes a step back; the students move forwards.

The police hold their line, immobile.

Fists tighten on batons.

It is easy to single out the extremists, the students who step over the line, and remove them from the equation. The rest of the students are expected to be moderate, to give in grudgingly but painlessly.

Pick out the students who would cause trouble; leave those who would be complacent. The issue should be resolved.

And yet—

The students defy expectations.

“We’re leaving,” Bossuet announces, voice carrying. “Until the police are removed from the universities, _we_ will be removed. If you wish to teach students, then listen to us. If not, well—I’m sure the _flics_ could stand to be taught a thing or two.”

“The liberation of humanity is all or nothing,” says Enjolras, voice quieter than before, the timbre almost that of a hymn. Still, the words carry throughout the crowd. “We _must_ refuse to stop halfway. Those who make revolutions halfway only dig their own graves while the opposition is aboveground.”

“Dig yourselves out, comrades!” shouts Joly, and he raises his fist.

A moment, a breath, a pause, then—

The crowd of students follows, one by one, in droves, filing out of the courtyard of the Sorbonne where the police and the administration seek to keep them fettered, imprisoned, sated and lacking agency. The students march through the gates and into the streets, spread like a cresting wave, swept along on a tide of unanimity. They march in accord with one another.

Dozens, hundreds of fists raised. Nanterre, Sorbonne, Sciences Po, Beaux-Arts. The universities have united.

 _Solidarity_. The word is a hum that mimics the steps of boots on bricks.

The factories bleed workers; the universities bleed students.

Someone writes on the wall of the Sorbonne: _il saigne_.

It’s bleeding.

 

 

-

 

 

Where do the flags come from? Pilfered from government buildings, torn from their poles, repurposed for the revolution? Stitched together from old jackets or handkerchiefs of the same colour to make a whole? Bedsheets? Students united wave the red flags of _gauchisme_ , the black flags of _anarchie_ , the tricolour flag of _solidarité_. They strip the very shirts from their backs.

Bahorel has a torn piece of a red banner draped across his shoulders like a cape as he explains to a group of curious new students how to make a bomb: a twist of fabric stuffed into the neck of a bottle, the glass stomach full of alcohol, and a dousing of kerosene.

Gavroche is there; no one knows from where he’s arrived. He follows Bahorel when Bahorel goes from cluster to group of students, carries an armful of grime-streaked empty glass bottles, darts through the crowd.

Bahorel doesn’t say: you shouldn’t be here, go home, you’re too young. He says, “Thanks for the help. _Comrade_ ,” and Gavroche grins, pleased at the appellation.

No one has planned any sort of demonstration. None of the students have planned anything since they walked out of the Sorbonne earlier in the morning. And yet by the time the afternoon sun creeps over Paris and the shadows begin to lengthen, nearly three thousand students are marching in the streets.

The news has caught on by now.

They’re clever with their publicities, keeping the cameras lingering on shots of the protestors throwing Molotov cocktails at police, women with their skirts hiked up as they wave incendiary flags and scream _liberté égalité sexualité_ , the pro-Gaullist graffiti sprayed over the walls of the Sorbonne.

And they don’t show Bahorel, recovering from a concussion caused by the head wound inflicted by a baton. Joly, shaky and terrified from being interrogated by the CRS. Feuilly, knuckles scraped pink and bleeding from digging up paving stones. Combeferre, eye swollen and lip split and pride stinging from a barrage of physical and verbal abuse. They don’t show the students, marching arm in arm, chanting—

_La Gaullisme sans de Gaulle!_

It’s a lie, that Gaullism could ever stand without the tight fist of its dictator holding it in its place.

Across France, students are pledging their support to the demonstrations and protests. Across France, universities are coming together to show their views to the public. Across France, tension is growing taut.

The students march through Paris, glorifying in the way the thread grows tight, ready to spring back.

The tension snaps like an old rubber band when they reach the rue Saint-Jacques.

Paris is shuddering under the weight of pounding boots on cobblestones, black silhouettes against bright ones. The city is tensing itself, flinching against the inevitable calamity of an explosion when the two sides meet.

Police act as a barrier to close the street.

The rue Saint-Jacques intersects first with the rue Soufflot and, further from the Sorbonne, the rue Gay-Lussac. It’s no more than a five-minute march. The students spread from the boulevard Saint-Michel, the rue Cujas, the Place du Panthéon. The police hold the opening of the rue Cujas, batons and shields and armour.

Plain-clothed students against the CRS.

“A modern Thermopylae,” says Bossuet with dry humour, standing next to Joly, arms linked at the elbow so that Joly doesn’t have to put his full weight on his injured leg. “I dread being the Leonidas.”

“The _flics_ aren’t refined enough to be Persian,” Bahorel scoffs, dismissive.

The police attack first, as usual.

Something is the catalyst: a step forwards from a student, an aborted movement towards a weapon, a shouted fragment of an anthem. Whatever it might be, the police move in as one. Batons and tear gas and riot shields, crowding the students back through the street by sheer force of numbers.

Back, back towards the rue Soufflot.

And the students resist.

 

 

-

 

 

It’s so terribly easy to make a bottle bomb. The kerosene is readily available, the containers even more so, and anyone can rip a shirt or other fabric into pieces to fill the neck of the bottle. Some of the students shred a tricolour with a sickening tearing sound, stuffing the scraps into empty wine and soft drink bottles.

The upheaval of tradition. Everything seems to be burning.

The _sorbonnards_ lead the charge. The students stand back with their arms linked, passing paving-stones along the line like firefighters might pass buckets at a house fire, were it not for the fact that these firefighters are feeding the flames. Bricks leap from the hands of students and fly towards the police and their shields.

A blow from a baton to the thigh or the back of the knee is enough to bruise, to hobble. To the front of the knee or the shin, it’s enough to splinter bone. Students lie crumpled on the cobblestones, clutching their legs, their arms, their hands, their palms and fingers scraped raw and pink from digging up bricks to throw.

There is blood on the stones that they throw, now.

Joly tries to stay as close to Bossuet as he can. The two of them have worked in tandem since they first met at the Sorbonne, were assigned the same dormitory room, and became fast friends. Now they wrap their hands about each other’s elbows and stumble together through the haze of smoke that comes from bombs.

The posters that once papered the walls of the buildings are coming loose, catching the spare flames.

One of Bossuet’s hands is crushed, the knuckles purpling, from trying to lift a cobblestone that had slipped and caught his fingers in between the teetering edge and the heavy solidity of the street.

Joly’s leg is still bandaged; he limps, leaning on Bossuet’s strong shoulder.

Who else is injured, bleeding, possibly lying on the cobblestones, unconscious or worse? It’s terrible to think about.

The fires are spreading. There is ample fuel to let them burn down the whole city.

 

 

-

 

 

The police demand a ceasing, and the people demand an answer.

And so Paris burns.

Earlier, gathered in the courtyard of the Sorbonne—waiting for the _doyen_ and his minions to arrive and declare the fate of the students and the imprisoned—Bahorel had suggested it, brash: what would happen if we burned the Sorbonne?

What if the students burned the Sorbonne? What if it all burned down?

A foolish idea, easily forgot.

But now the Sorbonne is on fire, from some cocktail or flash grenade or lick of flame from a poster caught in the wind. Barely a corner of the main building is alight, but it’s enough to send the people nearest it—students and police alike—scattering in droves, jackets pulled over their heads.

Smoke thickens the air above the university, fills the lungs of all those nearby.

The students from Nanterre have joined them, now, and those from the other universities—Beaux-Arts, Sciences Po. Classes are over for the day, either regularly or due to the interruption of a riot.

Enjolras looks gilded, standing in the haziness of the smoke and dust and fumes. He looks untouchable; the _flics_ wouldn’t dare to put their hands on him, to chain him. He looks like the anger and bitterness and resentment and energy emanating from the students has found a physical form to inhabit.

Then he steps forwards, away from the flash and burst of the bombs, and he’s human once again.

“Do you remember,” says Combeferre, a quiet murmur meant mainly for Enjolras but loud enough for the others to hear, “when this was just a complaint made by a handful of students who didn’t like a few policies?”

But Enjolras just shakes his head. It was never _just_ anything.

Prouvaire and Grantaire have left the café and joined the riot as well.

“What a fucking Monday,” Grantaire says, shoving a cigarette between his teeth and glancing over at Enjolras, “what a way to start off the week—” and they join in, digging up stones and shoving over containers and chanting, over and over. It could almost be monotonous, if not for the steady hum of adrenaline that fuels them all.

The police have no bricks to throw. From a distance the students have the advantage. When the police press forwards, Enjolras yells at the students to fall back, not to risk a direct assault. If the police can get close enough, they can end it on their terms.

Somehow, somehow, Enjolras remains untouched.

He’s at the front of the crowd, empty-handed, holding the students together. He helps Feuilly wrap his hands when the blood makes his fingers too slippery to hold a brick, offers Joly an arm when Bossuet is ducking down to grab a cocktail to throw, links his elbow with Combeferre’s when the police shout mockeries and lurch towards him first.

Joly finds Bossuet again, sharing Grantaire’s cigarette and stuffing the cut-off sleeve of someone’s shirt into the opening of a dusty bottle. He wraps his arm over Bossuet’s shoulder, breathes shakily into his jacket. It smells like petrol and smoke and the stench of the Parisian streets, but it’s still a comfort.

“Are you okay?” asks Bossuet, low. His arm encircles Joly’s shoulders, holds him close.

“I’m all right,” Joly says, and wills it to be true.

It feels like a race towards the edge of a cliff—no matter who wins this time, they’re all going to fall into the abyss. He doesn’t want to consider what will happen if they don’t succeed. He can’t imagine returning to the ordinary world before all this.

He can’t imagine looking straight into the eyes of his professors and knowing that they were partially responsible for how his leg aches with every step he takes, how Bossuet uses one hand to pry up bricks, how his friends are bruised and bleeding and desperate.

It’s unimaginable, to return to the world of before.

There is a _before_ and an _after_ , now.

The old world is behind them. They can’t go back, even if they don’t survive the battle; the future has already come to Paris, to France, to the world. The future is bursting into view on the horizon, bright and shining.

And the old world slinks behind, at their heels.

Feuilly takes the canister of red spray paint from Bahorel and writes on the wall of the nearest building: _cours vite_.

There’s paint on his hands when he moves away, and it looks like blood.

 

 

-

 

 

The first barricade arises where the rue Cujas meets the boulevard Saint-Michel.

A car parked nearby is shoved across the street and onto its side. Next come boxes and packing crates and even furniture, anything grabbed from the streets. Branches are torn from the trees lining the road.

Feuilly has half a dozen people off to one side, holding the barriers, ensuring that the barricades aren’t breached.

Combeferre is organising into piles the remnants of signs that have been hacked apart to use as weapons.

Bahorel is making more petrol bombs.

Courfeyrac is cutting up tyres into strips.

The barricades aren’t meant to close the street—just to stall the police, to keep them briefly at bay. From behind the broken and burning cars and piles of debris, the students are more evenly matched against the police.

Then—the bricks.

The façade to defend the barricade.

Crowbars serve their purposes well, to dig into the space between the bricks and pry them away. Broken pieces of stone chip away at the plaster holding the stones together. Bahorel pulls up a full-sized paving stone with a gleeful shout, and drags the stone over to the pile he’s accumulated beside the closest barricade.

The students spread out across the city—the streets, the _places_ , the courtyards. In the Place Edmond Rostand, at the end of the rue Soufflot, they dig into the dirt, prying away the brick coverings.

Courfeyrac, scrabbling at the grout between the bricks, reaches a hand into the depression and holds it aloft triumphantly. “Sand!”

“The heart of the Seine,” says Enjolras, smiling; he kneels, cups a handful of the dust and sand in his palm. They’re not far from the edge of the water. “They might have built over the riverbank, but now the prison has been unearthed.”

“Was that a god damn _pun_ ,” Courfeyrac says indignantly, and Enjolras laughs, surprised and happy.

That’s when the police breach the first barricade.

Three or four students set their shoulders against the turned-over car and slide it across the pavement to the side, the metal squealing as it scrapes across stone. The students watch, several barriers back, and grab bricks and bombs.

Slowly, endlessly, the police move forwards.

They reach the second barricade.

This one is burning, flames licking the leather coverings of the seats and the ice-crystal edges of the broken window. The police hesitate; moving the car might cause the fire to reach the fuel tank, igniting the petrol. An explosion greater than the damage done by the Molotov cocktails or flash grenades.

The risk proves too great. The police step back; the students exhale in relief.

Two barricades left between them.

Now. Something needs to happen now.

There’s a moment of calm, amidst the burning rubbish in the streets and the upturned cars and scattered bricks. There’s a moment where the shift is a palpable one: a rebellion to a revolution.

Enjolras ducks down low behind the nearest barrier, sets one hand on the metal hubcap that’s crisscrossed with scratches. He grabs one of the bricks from the pile. It feels heavy in his hand, solid.

He thinks about Berlin. He thinks about seven years ago, when the SED told the people that there was no intention to build a wall dividing the city. He thinks about barbed wire separating families, lovers, grandparents and their grandchildren. Guards with machine guns patrolling the border, ready to open fire upon anyone in the vicinity. He thinks about people who would risk anything to be with those they love.

He thinks about Prague, about the students being attacked, shot, hung, beaten to death. He thinks about Benno Ohnesorg, about Rudi Dutschke, about Daniel Cohn-Bendit. He thinks about Vietnam and the photographs and videos shown on the news—mothers holding their screaming children in their arms, young children starving and burned and bloodied, missing tongues or ears or fingers. He thinks about how you have to fight for what you love.

Love is a fight.

Enjolras stands up in a sudden rush of movement and lets the brick fly from his hand towards the police.

 

 

-

 

 

He thinks: it’s a revolution we’re going to create.

 

 

-

 

 

He thinks: let us offer them the protest of bodies.

 

 

-

 

 

He thinks: this is how it becomes a riot.

 

 

-

 

 

 _You’re the leader_ , Combeferre had told him, several days ago, sitting cross-legged on Enjolras’s bed, drawing absently on the back of a sheet of potential poster designs. A moment of quiet, of calm. Something gentle. _It’s you they want to stop_.

Enjolras had shaken his head.

 _No. I’m just the loudspeaker for the revolution_.

 

 

-

 

 

The brick doesn’t hit home, just clatters into the street, but more bricks follow its arc, bricks and bombs and shouted taunts. Flash grenades burst against cobblestones. Smoke bombs fill the air with their stench and heavy fog.

Tear gas, from the police. A simplistic name for something far more caustic. It burns, chokes, forces the students back, _back_.

And still they regroup almost instantly, covering their mouths and noses and eyes with sleeves or jackets or ripped flags. They fight.

The crowd swells, splits; comes together.

 

 

-

 

 

A flag, solid red: Enjolras grabs it, discarding the wooden pole for someone to use as a weapon, and climbs atop the mangled corpse of a smashed car.

From this new vantage point, he can see where a _flic_ grabs Feuilly and Feuilly punches the exposed soft skin in the space between where the helmet ends and the bulletproof vest begins. Bahorel is ducking and weaving between cars, throwing cocktails, dashing through heaps of burning rubbish in the street. Prouvaire and Courfeyrac have a burning tricolour that they wave on a long pole, screaming something about liberty, equality. Joly is digging up more bricks for Bossuet to throw at the police.

Everything is burning: cars, papers, buildings, the streets themselves.

It’s a riot, and he’s standing in the middle of it all.

 

 

-

 

 

Then—

 

 

-

 

 

The explosion happens in an instant, the burst of noise a sharp shock of sound, and then the dust and debris come raining down over the students as they scatter to avoid the burning bits of cloth. Enjolras, stranded on the twisted chrome hub of a car, is thrown back by the force of the explosion, and he hits the cobblestones hard.

There’s a moment of hesitation while the police wait for the smoke to clear so that they can move in.

Joly and Bossuet are running, together, followed by Feuilly. Combeferre is half-carrying Courfeyrac, who appears to be unconscious. Prouvaire is visible, briefly, then vanishes again into the smoke. Bahorel is throwing more bricks and other rubble in the direction of the oncoming police, even as he backs away.

Grantaire drops his cigarette, crushes it against the pavement with the heel of his shoe. Turns, pauses.

Enjolras has pulled himself up to his knees and elbows, coughing. There’s blood, bright red, on his shirt and mouth.

“Christ,” Grantaire groans, and darts forwards.

It’s a testament to the nicotine in some way or another that he doesn’t notice the tear gas until he’s right next to Enjolras, trying to help him to stand even as Enjolras grabs onto the crushed frame of the car next to him. Enjolras hisses and pulls his hand away sharply; the metal must be hot enough to burn.

“Come on,” says Grantaire, and tugs at his arm.

Enjolras coughs again, shoulders shaking. His eyes are full of tears from the smoke.

Grantaire tears away his jacket and shoves it at him, holding it to Enjolras’s face so he can breathe. He pulls the collar of his shirt up to cover his own mouth and nose, and then, finally, they’re moving.

“Fuck,” says Enjolras, spitting the word through a mouthful of fabric. Grantaire thinks about how he’d looked seconds before the explosion, brilliant and shining and untouchable.

“You blaspheme,” he says, trying for lightness. Enjolras coughs, raw.

The air is dark with smoke from the fires and the explosions.

It’s not until they reach the rue Gay-Lussac, where the barricades are still mostly unscathed, that Grantaire realises Enjolras is gripping his wrist so tightly it hurts, blood smeared on their skin, hot and sticky.

“The others,” Enjolras coughs, eyes streaming. His voice sounds ragged from the smoke and exposure.

“Sorbonne,” says Grantaire, thinks he’s trying to be reassuring somehow; he knows that Joly and Bossuet at least would think to regroup there, on familiar territory.

It’s lucky that he knows Paris so well. They dodge the fists and batons of _flics_ , duck under awnings and into the spaces next to doorways, pushing through crowds of those involved and those outside of the riot.

Easy to forget, that not everyone will or is willing to join in when the streets become a battleground.

The Sorbonne is still on fire.

The flames have died down somewhat, and the rising wail of fire trucks fills the air as they draw closer; dark shapes flit hither and thither, scurrying like rodents away from the invasion of the light. Their shoes crunch on bits of broken glass and plastic and scraps of twisted metal. Shards of burnt cloth from bombs; stone chips from cobblestones.

Enjolras draws himself up and sets his jaw as he marches into the courtyard.

The Sorbonne is burning; there’s no way in hell he’s going to let them burn with it.

 

 

-

 

 

Barricades: the word itself sends a shiver throughout the crowd. Fear, elation? The barricades close the street but open the way. A way out: more than a solid representation of discontent. The barricades are a physical manifestation of everything the students have been preaching for months. The barricades take the cobblestones of Paris and turn them into something revolutionary.

A revolution. It will become something.

The others have all gathered themselves in their original planning room at the very heart of the Sorbonne—except for Prouvaire.

Bossuet is occupied with fixing the bandages on Joly’s leg, but he looks up when Enjolras arrives, Grantaire following like a sulky shadow.

Enjolras looks incandescent.

There’s a tension to every movement he makes that wasn’t there at the beginning of the day, even when faced with the oncoming impassable wall of police. Before, he was serene; now, he’s angry.

A gathering storm.

The fight is still going on outside the Sorbonne. The occasional scream or explosion disturbs the hasty moments of rushed recuperation, but it’s the closest to _safe_ that they’ll get any time soon.

“What exactly happened to Prouvaire?” asks Marius, his eyes wide with fear. There’s a long scrape on his cheek, pink and raised.

It’s Courfeyrac who speaks up, looking miserable and furious. “We were running, and—three of them attacked us, I didn’t see anything until they were _right_ there, one of them grabbed me and I hit him with a brick but—they dragged him off, I couldn’t see where, I was being choked and I couldn’t _breathe_ —”

Combeferre wraps an arm about Courfeyrac’s shoulders and rubs his back comfortingly until the shakes subside. “Well, we just have to figure out how to get him back, the way we did with the others.”

Prouvaire, Jean Prouvaire, who calls himself Jehan with a touch of melancholic whimsy, poet and musician and philosopher. There’s a thick, heavy silence that hangs over them all as they huddle together in the darkened room, imagining horrors. Prouvaire in the hands of the police, being questioned, beaten, still wearing the bruises of the last time he’d encountered police fists and boots—

“It’s insane, they don’t want justice, they want us killed,” Courfeyrac gasps. His eyes are wide, pupils huge with fear and adrenaline. “I saw—I saw cops setting fire to their own cars, throwing bricks—they want to blame us for what they’re doing. They’re trying to make us the only enemy.”

“If they consider our fight for justice to be the enemy,” says Enjolras, recovering himself, “then by all means, let us be the enemy.”

The room is dark; no one has thought to turn on a light. Through the windows the streets are lit up by fire and bombs. The air still smells faintly of smoke and petrol, even inside the building, where it should be clear.

The look Enjolras wears on his face when he nods decisively at them all, sure and sharp, is grimly determined.

He ducks his head, pressing his fingers to the line of his jaw, penitent. “Courfeyrac—the _flic_ you hit with the brick, was he unconscious when you left him?”

“I think so, yeah,” Courfeyrac snaps, shuddering. The white-hot terror is melting into nascent anger.

“Did anyone come to help him, or was he alone?”

“I don’t think anyone helped him, why the hell does it _matter_ ,” says Courfeyrac, and then he understands—“ _oh._ ”

 

 

-

 

 

The _flic_ ’s name is Javert and he apparently brings his police identification card with him in his shirt pocket when he goes out to quell student riots.

“There’s no rope or anything,” Courfeyrac says, distressed. He’s starting to shake again, eyes wide; Combeferre has a steadying hand resting on his back. The empty space where Prouvaire should be is keenly felt.

Enjolras shrugs and yanks off his belt in one fluid motion. “Then we make do.”

They tie up Javert.

“I would have waited until at least the third date,” comments Grantaire from the corner; Combeferre’s hand stills on Courfeyrac’s back. He’d almost forgot that Grantaire was still there. He’s been uncharacteristically quiet.

Enjolras doesn’t dignify him with a response. “We need someone willing to speak to the police, to explain that we have one of their men and they have our friend. Someone who can make the negotiations and arrange Prouvaire’s release.”

“We’ll lose the advantage we might have with keeping the _flic_ if we let him go,” says Courfeyrac, through chattering teeth, still looking pale and nauseated. “Prouvaire wouldn’t want us to risk it for him.”

“I don’t fucking care,” says Bahorel suddenly, standing and slamming his fist down on the table top. His eyes are dark. They smoulder with emotion. “I’ll go. I’ll fucking go. I don’t care what you say. I’ll drag the bastard there with my own hands if that’s what it takes to get my comrade—my _friend_ set free.”

“Are you sure?” asks Combeferre, blurting out the words before he can think better of it. When he thinks of the police, he can still feel phantom fists gripping his wrists, his shoulders, his throat.

Loss is physical. It aches; burns.

He can’t imagine how Courfeyrac must be feeling.

Negotiations require re-entering the streets. In the relative safety of the Sorbonne, it’s easy to be bold. Outside, the city is a riot.

Burning. The city is burning.

Bahorel merely shrugs, eyes hollow. “He’s my friend,” he says. His tone offers no room for negotiation.

 _Lundi sanglant,_ the day is called. Bloody Monday, the first bloody day of the week.

 

 

 

 

 

Mardi, Mai 7, 1968

 

Thirty thousand students gather together in a crowd at the tomb of the unknown soldier the next day.

The morning brings the sun: the light illuminates the tomb. The metal glows gold where it encircles the stone.

 _Liberté, triomphe, résistance, paix_.

Prouvaire has been retrieved from the police, but remains in Courfeyrac’s apartment, curled up on the spare mattress usually used by Marius, huddled under several blankets despite the warm weather.

There’s a half-full mug of cold tea sitting next to his pillow when Enjolras goes to check on him, and Prouvaire smiles weakly in greeting. They’ve all come to visit, one by one so as not to overwhelm, bringing him small gifts or updates on the situation. Bahorel has visited several times.

Enjolras crouches near his head and touches Prouvaire’s cheek softly. There are bruises forming a blotchy purple-yellow necklace on his collarbone.

Earlier in the year Enjolras and a few other students had gathered in the café Musain, and Prouvaire had sat on a stool and played guitar, humming along and occasionally murmuring words that mingled with the rhythm of his fingers plucking the strings. When he had finished playing, Bahorel had presented him with an elaborate papier-mâché rose and a sticker reading: _cette machine tue les fascistes_.

Prouvaire had been full of life then, laughing and smiling and blushing when complimented. Now he’s a tiny lump under the blankets, barely moving, hardly responsive. “Hi,” he whispers, dry lips parting in the ghost of a smile.

“I’m sorry,” says Enjolras. The words taste hollow in his mouth. He understands why someone would want to fight and hurt and kill for something they love; he would do the same for any of his friends.

Love is fighting, he thinks, something that Courfeyrac likes to say, something he reminds himself frequently. Love is a fight.

He thinks about the tomb: un soldat français qui mort pour la patrie. The government is against the country, against the people. If it comes to that—

He thinks: I will be the first.

It’s hardly a surprising revelation, to realise that he would exchange his life for those of his friends.

Prouvaire closes his eyes. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay. I want to help.” He licks his lips and opens his eyes again. “Tell me what’s been happening.”

So Enjolras does. He talks about things that they already all know, about which political parties support or oppose them, about numbers and statistics and per capita impact. He talks about meaningless things—the weather, the sky. It’s spring, now; he didn’t notice until today, but he can see the buds on the trees, even in a darkened room with the curtains shut. There are birds on the rooftops, unbothered by the city’s carnage spread out below. Paris shows off her guts on the cobblestones.

Marius hesitates in the door with a bowl of clear broth in his hand until Enjolras looks up and sees him. Prouvaire has drifted off to sleep again, brow furrowed. One hand rests on his sternum, curled and tense, as if to push away lingering fingers.

“Is he sleeping?”

At Enjolras’s nod, Marius sets the bowl carefully on the crooked table in the corner and turns to go.

“Wait,” says Enjolras; Marius hesitates in the doorway. “Combeferre told me—your friend. When I was arrested at the Sorbonne. He said your friend found out where I was.”

“Eponine,” says Marius in a whisper.

“Thank you, and thank her for me,” says Enjolras. “You were the one who thought of how to figure it out, I heard. Thank you.”

“I’d do it for any of you in a heartbeat,” says Marius, smiling faintly, and closes the door softly behind him.

Prouvaire’s guitar is still resting in the corner, propped against the wall. The case wears stickers and banners as proudly as its owner raised his flag the day before. The original label— _this machine kills fascists_ —is faded but still there.

 

 

-

 

 

Courfeyrac is occupied with waving a bright red flag as furiously as he can and screaming himself hoarse when he hears someone calling his name, and Marius pushes his way through the crowd of students. His face is flushed pink for excitement and exertion, and he’s gripping the hand of a brunette girl in a neat blouse and skirt.

“This is—I found her, I—this is Cosette,” says Marius in a rush, breathless. The girl, Cosette, beams at him. “She’s—she goes to Beaux-Arts, she—I didn’t think I would ever see her again,” he finishes, grabbing her other hand. She smiles back at him.

Bahorel whoops. “Pontmercy in love! What a sight.”

Cosette blushes prettily. “We haven’t really talked about it yet,” she says quietly, but she’s grinning.

Courfeyrac shakes her hand enthusiastically and ruffles Marius’s hair. “Well, I’m glad he found you so that he’ll stop moping about the apartment.”

“I did not _mope_ ,” says Marius, affronted. Cosette giggles.

“Wait,” says Courfeyrac, comprehension dawning, “Beaux-Arts—”

Cosette gasps and claps her hands together. “Nanterre!”

Courfeyrac laughs, giddy, and hugs her quickly. “I can’t _believe_ I didn’t know it was you, we could have solved this whole thing—”

“My real name’s Euphrasie, but people call me Cosette—”

“If I’d known I would have dragged Marius over and made him talk to you—”

“I thought he went to Nanterre, so I dragged Emilie and Marie with me to go check—I didn’t even know his name, but I wanted to see him again—”

“Well, I’m glad it worked out, and that Pontmercy didn’t end up being a stalker,” Courfeyrac admits.

“Oh, no,” Cosette reassures, eyes shining as she holds Marius’s hand tightly, “believe me, I really like him too.”

Courfeyrac salutes her and spins about. “Hey! Hey, Enjolras! See, this is what happens—if we could go in the girls’ dormitories too, this never even would have been an issue in the first place—”

“She goes to a different university,” Enjolras yells back, “so your argument isn’t logical.”

“ _Semantics_ —”

“So, Cosette, are you interested in this sort of thing?” asks Bahorel, effectively cutting off Courfeyrac from shouting something else.

Cosette bites her lower lip pensively. “I—I really care about women’s liberation, gender equality, you know—um, birth control, that sort of thing. My—my mother wasn’t married when she had me, and she couldn’t keep her job . . . after I was born, I mean. My birth father didn’t do anything to help us, but—birth control wasn’t legal for women at the time, and you know, abortions aren’t legal either—I really want that to change.”

“Is your mother here?” asks Marius.

“Oh,” says Cosette. “Um. She’s dead.”

Marius turns bright red. “I, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“It’s okay, you didn’t know—I barely remember her, my Papa’s raised me for as long as I can remember. But that’s part of the reason I care about women’s rights, that sort of thing. My mother deserved better. Sorry, I know I’m rambling.”

Bahorel pats her shoulder comfortingly. “Well,” he says, with a grin, “you’re here with us now, comrade.”

 

 

-

 

 

Fifty thousand participants have joined the march.

The police tear into the demonstration with tear gas and flash grenades, and the response comes in the form of bottle bombs and paving-stones. The number of barricades creeps higher and higher as the pre-existing barricades themselves are built upon, brick by brick. The streets are narrow enough that building the blockades is easy; fighting back against the police is even easier. The bricks torn up to throw, to block off the streets, are smeared with blood and sweat and petrol.

The police leave no room for negotiations.

 _Dismantle the barricades and return to your homes_. The command is repeated over and over, shouted through loudspeakers.

“You can’t stop a commune,” someone shouts, and others take up the cry.

“Vive la commune! Vive la commune de Paris!”

It’s going to be a bloody week.

 

 

 

 

 

Jeudi, Mai 9, 1968

 

Between the riots, in the interim, there is calm. The eye of Paris’s storm of revolution has centred itself on the café Musain.

“The PCF has split,” says Enjolras, tapping his fingers absently on a stack of pamphlets ready to be distributed. He brings up the map of Paris that he carries in his head, and focuses on the centre, where the riots are thickest. “The younger adherents are in our favour, while the older are more conservative, and tend to lean towards de Gaulle. The issue is that they don’t want to support a group of students with bricks and bombs when they could be debating in government buildings wearing suits and ties and sharing bottles of champagne. _Oh, look at the young people these days, out rioting in the streets._ They forget they were young once, too.”

“Glass houses,” murmurs Combeferre, but it’s directed at the conservative communists, not Enjolras. “Have they forgotten what communism is meant to be about, then? The workers, the students, the _people_. Do they favour Castro, Trotsky, Mao? Do they even know who those people are?”

“It varies,” Courfeyrac answers, wry, leaning in closer. Trying for levity. “Some of them almost prefer Marx. Me, I prefer a brick in my hand.”

Bahorel laughs from the corner. “Which of us doesn’t?”

They make light of it, but the PCF has the most support by far of any political group or organisation, and the reduction by half is a heavy blow. It’s too soon to say anything with definitiveness, but it is definitely a loss.

There is tension, now, between the students and the professors. The universities are still closed, but classes have not been revoked; the likelihood of expulsion looms on the horizon. Enjolras knows that some of them, such as Bahorel and Courfeyrac, have hardly spared anything more than a passing thought to the educational reforms recently. The original goal has been swept aside as the tide of revolution carries them onwards.

Coalitions and unions are bordering the fight on a level of government reform. Enjolras still feels that the original purpose has been neglected. Some teachers have joined the students, but most remain in their homes or in the universities, waiting.

The Minister of Education forbids the reopening of the universities until the students have complied.

The students refuse to comply until the universities have been reopened.

This is the impasse, the barrier between them. Each side refuses to bend, to break.

And in the interim, in the midst of it all, the students talk. They plan. They strategize. They organise.

If the universities must remain closed, then the cafés will serve as meeting-places in the meantime.

The Musain is the eye of the storm.

“I was thinking we could try that idea about the radio Courfeyrac suggested a while ago,” says Combeferre, looking up from his work. “We need a way to reach a great amount of people, what better way than through the radio? Right now, the government has control of the news, the media. We need to take it back from them.”

Courfeyrac beams. “I would still prefer to plant my fist in de Gaulle’s face, but I’m glad that you like my idea.”

“You do know,” says Enjolras, “that students from the Sorbonne have been running a radio station for weeks now.”

They both stare at him, twin portraits of surprise.

Enjolras sighs. “Grantaire mentioned it to me. I don’t think he even meant to discuss it, he wasn’t talking about anything pertinent. Apparently Joly and Bossuet co-host, and invite other students on during special events, or to give interviews. They also play music, generally either composed by students or pertaining somehow to students, or related to some revolutionary event throughout history.”

“Françoise Hardy?” asks Courfeyrac, perking up. “Dutronc?”

“I don’t know, you’d have to ask them. Anyway, my original point was, if we wanted to go through with that idea, we _do_ know people who could help.”

“That’s amazing, I had no idea—well, I suppose they can’t let the administration know they’re doing this, of course. Ah, damn, I want to listen to that show. I want to be _on_ that show. Do you know the number?”

“Europe no1, apparently. I don’t know much about it, only what I was able to gather from a few passing mentions in an otherwise unrelated conversation. Apparently they’ve been recently calling it ‘barricade radio.’”

“Oh, no wonder you love it,” says Combeferre, teasing. “We should be careful, though. I don’t know how public this is, and they could get in serious trouble if it’s revealed to Roche and the like. We shouldn’t mention it to anyone else until we hear from Joly and Bossuet that it’s all right to discuss it.”

“Of course,” Courfeyrac agrees, although he’s still practically humming with excitement. “I can’t believe I didn’t know about this earlier—you’ve been keeping secrets from us, Enjolras, how dare you. A _radio show!_ And students from the Sorbonne! I can hardly wait until we can talk to them about it.”

 

 

-

 

 

Marius turns up again the next day.

It takes more effort to drag himself to the café Musain than he would ever think to admit, but he makes it.

He’s out of his element and flinching at every noise louder than a whisper, but he read somewhere once that lemons could help assuage the burning sting of tear gas, and he’s been meaning to make lemon meringue for Courfeyrac’s impending birthday.

Marius has been refusing to accept money of any sort from his grandfather or other family ever since he left home to attend Sciences Po, but he has enough loose coins in the pockets of his worn trousers or scattered across the bureau he and Courfeyrac share that he can buy almost a dozen lemons.

He counts the coins one by one, and lifts his chin up when he feels the shopkeeper’s eyes rake over him, taking in his threadbare coat and short socks. His face burns, but he keeps his head held high.

“Thank you,” says Enjolras, caught off guard, when Marius stammers out his explanation as to why he’s arrived lugging a knapsack stuffed full of yellow citrus. Enjolras takes one of the fruits in his palm and contemplates it for a moment, then slips it back into the bag and claps Marius firmly on the shoulder. “That was a very smart idea.”

“It—it was nothing,” Marius manages, “I just—wanted to help . . .”

He doesn’t know what to do. He hasn’t had a chance to talk to Cosette since the last demonstration; the riots have caused people to be more cautious, locking their doors and closing their shutters. He hasn’t spoken to his grandfather or his aunt or anyone in his family in several weeks, and ignores the part of him that wants to do so.

Marius has considered the worst: his grandfather could disown him, kick him out formally, even though Marius has been technically living with Courfeyrac ever since he started attending Sciences Po.

The options aren’t as severe as a choice between Gaullist capitalism and rampant anarchy, but Marius still doesn’t want either end.

He doesn’t know what to think—he can’t agree with his grandfather’s political views, not considering the friends he has, but he doesn’t think he can agree with the opposing side either. His grandfather would say that the students want a total collapse of structure, a destruction of any sort of solid government.

 _My father_ , Marius thinks, with a rush of selfish pride, _my father loved his country. My father would have figured out something to do._

He doesn’t know how long he’s been speaking of his father in the past tense. He still hasn’t confronted his grandfather about the possibility of lies surrounding his father’s life, death, whichever.

But he can at least bring lemons to his friends, and so he does. Combeferre fixes him with that piercing stare, making Marius feel like a bug pinned to a board, and nods curtly.

Courfeyrac laughs when Marius recounts the incident, but not unkindly. “It’s appreciated,” he says, ruffling Marius’s curls with the hand not holding a crowbar, and Marius _knows_ that, but he still can’t remove that residual feeling that he should be wary of Combeferre.

With Combeferre it’s not just the fact that he’s undeniably intimidating, but also that he gives off the sense that he’s more collected, more intelligent, and more correct than anyone else in the room. He exudes _presence_.

Marius has been staying out of sight, mostly, as best he can.

No one comments on it, but he knows they all must have noticed. He makes excuses to stay hidden in the back of the table so that he’s away from the windows, jumps eagerly at the first excuse to be the one to fetch food or water from the counter up front, ducks his head each time someone unknown passes by outside or he leaves the shelter of the café—watching, wary, guarding himself against some invisible enemy, resenting the loss of anonymity.

The barricades bring visibility. Publicity.

Exposure.

 

 

-

 

 

Combeferre brings his typewriter to the café Musain later that day, and they huddle about the table, watching as he types up the notes written in Enjolras’s shaky handwriting, still clumsy from his healing fingers:

_Mitterrand s’est disqualifié par son appel ouvert à l’illégalité—et Mendès-France que l’on croyait si attaché aux principes républicains, s’est lui-même déconsidéré en déclarant que le pouvoir était dans la rue—leur hâte à se partager le pouvoir, au mépris de la Constitution, a indigné la France._

“Les français, surely,” says Combeferre, pausing. Enjolras shrugs his acquiescence, and Combeferre erases and types over the offending word.

— _a indigné les français. Qui désormais pourrait leur faire confiance?_

“Us, obviously.” Courfeyrac grins. “The power is in the streets, the beauty is in the streets, the poetry is in the streets—everything is in the streets.”

In the streets, people are passing out philosophical texts. Gavroche turns up again, grubby and delighted in his armour of eleven years, fists full of candy and with a copy of the Little Red Book in the bag slung over his shoulder.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
